Taylor Swift's, "Love Story" Analysis

Taylor Swifts music video, "Love Story," takes place in an medieval Renaissance period. Since this video has a beginning, middle, and an end, this video is a narrative. It tells a story about the unrequited love between two people who are not allowed to be together but try anyways. This is the conflict. The video mirrors the idea of the play Romeo and Juliet.

The video starts at the end of the story and throughout the video, flashbacks of the two together are shown, which is what discontinuity editing does. She is imagining the two back in time.

Mise en Scene is used in this video through costumes and scenery. There is acting going on, since the two characters are playing the roles of Romeo and Juliet. When watching the video, you are suppose to feel like you are "in" the time frame of the 18th century. The use of daylight seemed to be very important when shooting this video. The bright sunshine is shown in several shots with high key lighting. During the nighttime scenes, there is very high contrast, with low key lighting.

The video is shot using shallow and deep space between the two characters and props. The cameras use panning/lifting as well as tracking/craning. They seem to be zooming in some of the shots, like when she is stationed in the castle, singing on the balcony. When they are in the field, running towards one another, the cameras are following the characters, and then circle around them. The camera moves pretty quickly throughout the video.

There are a lot of angles shown in this video as well. Cinematography is shown through high and low angles of the singer when she is by herself and during the dancing scenes. All the different shots are used here, (ELS, LS, MS, MCU, CU, and ECU). There are two ECU shots. One shows the two characters holding hands, and the other shows Swift picking berries.

The video does a good job in expressing the characters personalitys. Juliet, played by the artist, is shown as an inocent girl who is awaiting for her prince. I think the lighting, costumes, make-up and scenery were all chosen very carefully and all worked perfectly for the video. Taylor Swift is one of my favorite artists, and although I have seen this video before this assignment, I still enjoyed it like the first time I saw it.